INDIANS IN FIJI.

Press, Volume LVII, Issue 17296, 7 November 1921, Page 10

INDIANS IN FIJI.

A CHRISTCHURCH DOCTOR'S OBSERVATIONS. The following interesting communication from Dr. W. H. Symes appears in the ' 'Pacific Age," published at ' Suva, of -October 17th last : I wish to suggest' the advisability oi having the Indian immigrants medically examined 'before leaving India, and also on arriving here, as I am informed they are not examined at present. The Chinese should also be examined, but the Chinese coolies in Samoa are much more healthy and strong than the Indians in Fiji. The community can have no idea of the fearful amount of disease which the Indians are introducing into the colony. I have been working in the Colonial Hospital, Suva, for nearly three months, every day and all day long, and have seen all the outpatients, who come every morning in numbers from one to two dozen. I have kept no records of the numbers, but I estimate that 9-10ths of them are Indians, and that for every one Fijian there are 9 Indians. The only exception is on Wednesday, when special treatment for Yaws is given, and the Fijians are more numerous than usual. My estimate eoinc : des with that of two members of the staff who attend the out-patients. In addition to these, Dr. Staley has organised a dispensary for Indian women and children at Toorak, the Indian quarter of Suva, where j large numbers are attended to by her. I No similar dispensary seems to be required for the Fijians. The contrast between the two races is strikingly shown in the nature of the diseases, for which the out-patients come. Serious constitutional diseases, often the result of venereal disease, are much more frequent in Indians than in Fijians, and syphilis itself in its worst form is found in the Indians occasionally, while it is practically unknown in Fijians. The effect of syphilis on the person who acquires it, though occasionally serious, is negligible in comparison with its effect on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th generat'ons of his descendants. Hereditary syphilis is the principal one of all the many oauses or insanity, feeblemindedness, and crime in the world -*f to-day. It is probafoly the only truly hereditary disease, and' the only disease which produces permanent injury to the brain -%nd nervous system in succeed! -2 generations. It has been proved that these defects are not distributed evenly throughout a population, but run in certain families, and exist side by side. The descendants of any one of- the three types may present either of the other two types. Many individuals have been, each of them, the ancestors of hundreds of such defectives. Thus the descendants of a syphilitic man named Jukes, born in 1720, have been traced in seven generations, and proved to have supplied over 1500 insane, feeble-minded, and criminals, and have cost the Government 1J million dollars. Similar families traced in the United States are the Nams, the Kallikaks the Ishmaelites, the Hill Folk, eto. A large number of these family histories is given in the American "Journal of Heredity," The Fijians- are, in physical development, one of the finest races in the Empire, and their constitutional vitality is indicated by their splendid teeth. They are mentally in an earlier stage of evolution,than we are, but I have found some of the medical students at the hospital, to whom I. have been teaching anatomy, highly . intelligent. By preventing war, we have remove-!. Nature's universal stimulus to evolution, and we must substitute peaceful competition, by . taxjng their unimproved land. I may exnlain this by the case of rabbits. These, when in and well .fed,' for several generations, are found to have verysmall brains, ttnd to be very dull in perception, while similar rabbits in a wild state have brains 25 per cent, larger, and are very quick in perception. Throughout Nature, no evolution occurs without a struggle against adverse condition,;. The supremacy of the white race is entirely due to the large brain, which it evolved during' the Glacial period, in the North of Europe, when the fearfully hard conditions of life compelled it to struggle frightfully for bare existence. Races sunk in ease and luxury always degenerate. No conquering race has.ever come out of the tropics. We are imder an obligation, to protect the Fijians from the introduction of those diseases, to whach they are less immune than we are, on account of their shorter experience of them. Unless we do so, the land will soon be overspread with asylums, reformatories, prisons, and charitab'e aid homes, like England and New Zealand are becomiing. • This is shown by the fact that the rate of insanity in Fiji at present is only about 7 for each 10.000 of population; it is about 36 per 10,000 in England and New Zealand. In Samoa, where there are scarcely any Indians, the rate of insanity is about one in 10,000. In Tonga the rate is lower still. The Americans are just awaking to this fact, and have recently passed _ very stringent laws, requiring every imigrant to pass a thorough (not superficial) medical examination before embarking, and again on arrival at New York. In regard to syphilis, the best guarantee is the production of one or two healthy children who are developed normally. This is an infallible test. Special inducement should be 'offered to married Indians or Chinese with healthy children to come here, in preference to single men. It would be more expensive than the . present system, but it would.pay handsomely in a short time. The last Blue Book gives the population on December 31st, 1920, as:— \ European and half-castes ... 7,920 Indians ... 59,695 Fijians and Polynesians ... 93,290 Other races ... 1,576 Total ... 162.481 So that Mr Sastri's estimate of 70.000 Indians is not correct. If we allow 60,000 for Indians, and 95,00G[ for the other coloured races, the Indians represent 39 per cent, of all the coloured races but they absorb 90 per cent, of the hospital treatment of coloured races. I visited the asylum and found the proportion of Indians, as usual, excessive. There were 109 patients in the asylum in 1920, of which 78 were Indians, 15 Fijian, and 16 of other races. If we compare the 78 Indians with the 15 Fijians, we find the Indians represent 84 per cent, of the total 93. On visiting the gaol, I noticed the poor physical development of most of the Indians. In 1920 there were 59 prosecutions for crime in the Supreme Court, of which 50 were Indian and 9 Fijian, giving a proportion of 85 per cent, for Indians. In 1921, up to Stepl tember, there have been 60 prosecutions in the Supreme Court for Crime including 48 Indians, 10 Fijians, 1 Chinese, and 1 Solomon Islander. Here the Ini dians represent 83 per cent, pf the total I Indians and Fijians. ! These figures show that, although the j Indians are only 39 per cent, of the coloured races in Fiji, vet they absorb 90 per cent, of the hospital treatment, supply 84 per cent, of the insane, and 85 per cent. of. the criminals. In all ! countries there is a close parallelism ' betweon the numbers of insane and criminal persons, and it applies also to the | number of feeble-minded. Disease is the physical basis of these defects, and it can all be prevented, if we have only the moral courage to do so. - j Think of it!—6o doses of "NAZOL" for Is Gd, and every dose soothes and I relieves bad colds, troublesome coughs and sore throat. 1